Some Updates

I just created two new blogs here, attached to this account.  I hope to funnel some of my thinking there, and connect in interesting ways here.  I've started to feel like this is a nice, public place to think and reflect on teaching/reading/writing, but that it's not an appropriate place for some of the things that I want to write about.  So, I hope to post my thoughts on teaching, technology, literacy, etc. here, while my (perhaps less interesting) other thoughts will be posted in either of the other two blogs.  

I'm a weird mix of research instincts (from being an English Ph.D. student some years ago) and the urge to write (from being a wannabe novelist/writer/provocateur since middle school), and these things are coalescing around some obscure interests, like common shade trees.  Honestly, there's not a big difference between trees and Frank Lloyd Wright, really, except perhaps people are more interested in the latter.  

So, anyway, that's what's up.  I'm hoping to post a few things here soon, dealing with engagement and motivation, some new ideas for portfolios in my middle-school classroom, and some general thinking about literacy and technology.  Big, teacher-related things.  

So, thanks for reading.  

Great video of "thinking partners"

I shared this on Twitter because I really like it as a model of effective use of student talk in the classroom:

I think that there would need to be changes for this to be effective with 7th graders.  Obviously, they might not be as fascinated in caterpillars as these kids are.  And you might not want to stop so often to model the thinking and talking.  But the physical modeling of appropriate behaviors is really effective and important, and would definitely help.  I think it's a nice way to create a mental picture of what they are supposed to be doing.  Too many students at this age just don't have an appropriate mental image of what effective collaboration and partnering is supposed to be like.  If they have an understanding of this, it is often misguided or misleading.  It always helps to solidify this - especially early in the school year - because it can be so useful later.  And I really think this is important for middle school.  7th graders are so peer-focused that any way to channel student talk in a positive direction is probably going to work.  (They are often much more engaged in what they say to each other than in what you say to them.)

Debut of my YouTube Channel

Check out my high-quality vid here:

I know, I know, it's super-stupid and slightly (!) boring.  But this was just a test, eh?  So please be patient.

Inquiry in the Reading/Writing Classroom - Units of Study

Last year, I was looking around for ways to use more inquiry in my Reading/Writing class.  I was in love with the idea as a content-area (science and social studies) teacher, and I wanted to use it more.  

It helped that I attended a Summer Leadership Institute with the Illinois Writing Project.  I met several teachers from other schools, and I found that another school had begun using Study Driven, a book by Katie Wood Ray.  The book introduces a way of teaching reading and writing in related ways, as part of a focused, intensive study of ("immersion" in) a specific genre.  

Let me explain by example.  Let's say that you choose to study memoir.  You flood the students with examples of memoir, as many as you can find that are appropriately leveled and (hopefully) engaging.  After they have read and studied several examples, you ask them to notice or discover what these texts have in common.  You articulate these common features, and you talk about the ways that writers can choose to adhere to these conventions or not, but that generally a genre will follow a certain set of conventions.  Memoir, for example, is typically told in first person and focuses on significant events in a person's life.  It is tied to specific contexts and settings, often to specific objects or people.  It is almost always intensely localized or focused on the minute details of the past.  

This is the inquiry part.  You are focusing students on a specific line of inquiry, and you are asking the big questions, but students are discovering the nuances of the answers.  Eventually, the goal would be to encourage them to branch out on their own, discover and analyze their own notion of genre, or even start to formulate an emerging genre (very cool!).  The end product, however, is for them to create a text that fits the genre they are studying.  

So, students are buried in examples or models of a genre, asked to study them closely, articulate the conventions of that genre as a result of that study, and then create a text that adheres to those conventions.  The text is created under the conditions of a typical writing workshop, with students choosing the particulars of how they will create the text and allowed to work at their own pace in an environment where they are supported and given time to compose and revise.  

The results were impressive.  Partly because I supported this with journals, and partly because I swamped them with models - all directed toward a specific, up-front objective - my students created some of the best memoir I have seen from 7th graders.  I read so many good examples that it was overwhelming.  

Part of the success comes from the choice of genre.  You can't study a genre like political satire or medieval mystery plays in a middle-school classroom.  You need good examples that students can connect to, and you need to be able to help them focus topics and sustain effort over time.  Many of my students were writing longer texts than they had ever written before.  And not every student wrote great stuff or tried their hardest.  That's something I will continue to work on, but it was not a Hollywood movie or a fairy tale, so it wasn't 100%.  But it was much closer than I have ever been before.  I was also successful with the "scary story" genre, and with shorter examples like the 55-word story.  (I found a book of examples of this - the number of words is not important, as long as they are forced to fit that example.  Like haiku, forcing them to shape their thinking into a certain conventional container can be challenging and fun.)  Odes also worked well - mostly because of examples from Pablo Neruda and past students.  We also had fun (perhaps a little too much) with tweets as a genre.

I'm working on units based on jokes, narrative nonfiction with "tension" (a concept from Donald Murray), tweets (a more organized version), and some kind of persuasive text (still searching for a good, authentic genre appropriate for this developmental level with engaging models of appropriate length).  

I was planning to also discuss inquiry and the teaching of grammar, but I'll have to post about that later.  

Using Music in the Classroom - Cat's in the Cradle

I mentioned in a previous post that I like to use music in the classroom to help reflect and promote writing/thinking.  I used Harry Chapin's song, "Cat's in the Cradle" to great effect last year.  I had them watch the video, follow along with the words, and then write about family and how it can influence you.  The lyrics are not hard to find, and the video is kind of intriguing and quirky (clothes from the '70's?).  Here's the YouTube link:

Quick note: students who struggle with the text are not going to be able to watch the video and follow along with the words in any meaningful way.  I passed out the questions and lyrics (below) first, then had students read and think about the questions before watching the video.  This helps set a purpose for viewing the video and makes the review of the lyrics almost like a fluency activity, helping them adjust and correct the "voice" in their heads.  Having the lyrics in front of them after viewing, while writing about them, also helps them get specific and respond more directly to the language of the song.

This helped produce a lot of strong feelings, and a lot of strong writing.  I had at least one student crying during this (a "tough guy") - and while he wasn't able (or willing) to explain all of his thinking for this prompt, it created a sense of need or purpose for the explaining that might have been hard to establish in other ways with this particular student.


Here's the text of the handout I created with the lyrics, if you don't want to do it yourself:

-----------------------------------------------------------

Writing about Family 

Listen to (and watch the video for) the following song about a father and his son.  While you’re watching, think about the following questions/things to write about:

1.     How do you feel about becoming just like your parents?  Do you think you will be just like them when you grow up?  Is that a good thing?

2.     Tell a story about something interesting or funny that happened between you and your parents.  Try to tell it slowly and carefully, including dialogue (a good guess of the actual words you said to each other).

3.     If you choose to become a parent (in the distant future, 40 or 50 years from now), what kind of parent do you think you would be?  What kind of parent would you want to be?

4.     Imagine you are dating someone seriously (twenty years from now), and that person starts asking about your family.  What do you think you would tell that person?  What are the important things that people need to know to understand your family? 

Please focus on only ONE of the questions above, and explain yourself the best you can in the time you have.  Remember that a quickwrite means that you KEEP WRITING for the entire time!

Cats in the Cradle

by Harry Chapin

My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew
He'd say "I'm gonna be like you dad
You know I'm gonna be like you"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

My son turned ten just the other day
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Well, he came home from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and said with a smile
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job's a hassle and kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad
It's been sure nice talking to you"

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Thinking about writing journals?

I'm starting to plan for my 6th year as a 7th grade reading/writing teacher at Chicago-area middle school, and I wanted to "think out loud" about writing journals/notebooks and their use in the middle-school language arts classroom.

There are several schools of thought on this, and a lot of powerful ways to use these things, as well as several possible ways to handle the logistics.

Here are some ways that I've used journals (let's just call them that for now) in the LA classroom:

1. As a daily "Do Now" or immediate activity done at the very start of class.  This strategy is useful to reinforce management and get students seated and working.  It helps maximize productive class time.  
2. As a less rigorously structured thinking or processing activity done at variable times during the class.  This might be something like, "Brainstorm a list of ways that you can use this strategy," or "Now that we understand what similes and metaphors are, write out some possible reasons that authors might use figurative language like this . . . ."  
3. As a way to enrich classroom or small-group discussion, as a kind of preparation or planning ahead for a focused conversation on a specific topic.  "Before we discuss the end of the story "Seventh Grade" by Gary Soto, let's write out our thinking about this question: do you think it was okay for the main character to pretend to know French to impress the girl?"  

There is at least one other really cool way to use journals - as the "writing notebook," a kind of catch-all or "commonplace book" that writers use to gather their thinking and random ideas.  I think Ralph Fletcher and Donald Murray are the big proponents of this type of tool.  If used appropriately, it's a fantastic resource that makes composing much easier.  I'd like to move in that direction, and I'm going to be digging into this idea a little more this year.  If I decide to go ahead with journals again this year, I will probably try this.  

As far as logistical challenges go, there are numerous ways to provide students with notebooks to use for daily in-class writing:  

1. Spiral, wire-bound notebooks 
2. the slightly more expensive "neatbook" or bound writing notebooks with no wires
3. A bundle of lined paper provided several times a year (through the district copying service)
4. A stapled, pre-designed packet of prompts with space to respond
5. Binders and loose-leaf notebook paper
6. BYON (bring-your-own-notebook)

All of these cost money, and every year except one, I have provided these notebooks to my students.  One year I created a packet of prompts and questions, and had production make copies for me.  They not very sturdy, and the pre-written prompts often didn't feel related to the issues discussed in other parts of the class.  This also made it difficult (or cumbersome) to use longer response-type prompts, such as responding to poetry, music, or pictures (something that I began using this year with great success).  

I've been able to pick up dozens of notebooks during back-to-school sales, and the expense has been minimal.  I prefer this approach because it makes all the notebooks match (which makes stacking and differentiating them from others much easier), and it helps establish a positive climate at the beginning of the school year (here's a free notebook!).  It also makes me feel less guilty about collecting and reading them, and often keeping them at the end of the year.  

Notebooks as journals are more flexible than the packets, because it's easier to stretch to accommodate different-sized entries, and a notebook allows more creativity than a packet.  It also doesn't require a desk or hard surface for writing - students can take notebooks with them on "field trips" to other parts of the building or outside (a very intriguing and under-utilized feature, at least in my class).  I've never had a student run out of room, though students definitely vary in the amount of writing they do.  

I think the year-long tool is helpful, too, with year-end portfolios (it enables much greater scope of reflection), and regular use of the journal during daily required writing time helps build good writing habits (many students wrote that they felt like they grew a lot as writers because of the daily writing time) and writing fluency.  

I think the biggest surprise for me was the amount of room left over in the notebooks at the end of the year.  I think that regular feedback helps most students (some students were uncomfortable with me collecting and reading notebooks, and I did the "mark the entries you want me to read" approach at least twice during the year), and I think the lesson is that I should be using notebooks more often, and more closely tying notebook writing to grades and to curriculum.  I'm considering a weekly writing assignment, over-and-above the daily in-class notebook writing and workshop writing time.  

So, in the end, this whole thing boils down to one essential question:

How can I get my students to use their writing notebooks more, both writing more in the notebooks and using the writing for other things more often?

I'll be digging through some professional books in the weeks ahead to look for some answers.    

Joining the Summer Throwdown

Okay, perhaps this is a bad idea, but I'm in for this: